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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589007">Ishtar</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_arazil/pseuds/fallen_arazil'>fallen_arazil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Female Arthur Morgan, Jealous John Marston, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:13:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_arazil/pseuds/fallen_arazil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Morgan had always been a strange woman, for as long as John had known her.</p><p>  <em>"I'm just saying," George said, not bothering to keep his voice down, "between the way she looks, the way she talks, and the way she dresses? Morgan must have a pussy made of solid fucking gold to keep Dutch interested."</em></p><p>  <em>"You better shut your mouth about Arthur," John snapped, oddly offended on her behalf.</em></p><p>  <em>"Yeah, and that's the other thing—what's with her fuckin' name?" George went on, dismissing John's objection. "Arthur is a man's name. I mean, I know she acts like a man, but I assume she's still got a gash."</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arthur Morgan/Dutch van der Linde (mentioned), John Marston/Arthur Morgan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. To Have</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is something I've been playing around with for months, and with Samaritan over (or almost over) I finally finished my first train of thought on it. </p><p>There's actually quite a bit of genderqueer and even trans fic in this fandom, but one thing I seen a surprising dearth of is straight up always-female genderswap, which is one if my particular weaknesses. I've always loved to explore how character dynamics might shift if a certain character is female. There's some of that, here--and also some sex, lol. </p><p>I'm marking it complete because it very well might be--I can't promise to add to it. Consider this a brief slice of life, self-contained as it is, with room for your own interpretations. That said, reader feedback is often inspiration to me, so I'm putting this out there to see how people feel about the general premise and maybe even motivate myself to continue.</p><p>Do let me know what you think.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I'm just saying," George said, not bothering to keep his voice down, "between the way she <em>looks</em>, the way she <em>talks</em>, and the way she <em>dresses</em>? Morgan must have a pussy made of <em>solid fucking gold</em> to keep Dutch interested."</p><p>"You better shut your mouth about Arthur," John snapped, oddly offended on her behalf.</p><p>"Yeah, and that's the other thing—what's with her fuckin' <em>name</em>?" George went on, dismissing John's objection. "Arthur is a <em>man's</em> name. I mean, I know she <em>acts</em> like a man, but I assume she's still got a gash."</p><p>"If you want me to jump across this fire and knock your teeth out," John growled, "keep talkin'."</p><p>"Looks like I struck a nerve," George laughed, elbowing Bill Williamson, who was sitting beside him and pointedly not participating in the conversation. "We all seen you trotting after her all the time—what, you like women who could snap you in half?"</p><p>"You sonuva—" John responded, about two seconds from doing as he threatened and throttling the other man, when a hand dropped down on George's shoulder.</p><p>"You know, <em>Georgie,</em>" Arthur drawled, as she stepped over the log to seat herself next to George, close enough that their knees brushed, "you seem to be spending a lot of time with your mind in between my legs for someone who has zero chance of ever gettin' their dick there."</p><p>George's bravado immediately vanished in the face of the woman herself. Even if Arthur hadn't been so clearly, unabashedly <em>dangerous</em>, they all knew that she was Dutch's left hand, had the ear of the boss. She was <em>not</em> someone to be fucked with. "I uh … it was just talk, Miss Morgan."</p><p>"Good," Arthur drawled in response, "because if I hear another <em>word</em> outta you," her voice dropped into a lower register, dark and dangerous, "even a goddamn <em>whisper</em>, about my cunt or what I do with it, I'll make sure you find out what it's like not to have a dick. We clear?"</p><p>"We're clear," George acknowledged weakly, and Arthur patted him on the knee, companionably, before standing up.</p><p>"Oh," she called, over her shoulder after she walked a few paces, "and if you don't care for my <em>name</em>, maybe you should just keep it the<em> fuck </em>outta your mouth from now on."</p><p>"<em>Shit</em>," George breathed, once she was out of earshot. "I thought she was in town with Dutch."</p><p>"Sure, talk big when you think she ain't here to hear you, huh?" John sneered as he pushed himself to his feet. "And then you talk like <em>I'm</em> pathetic."</p><p>He found Arthur out by the creek, her shoulder leaned up against a tree, smoking with a thoughtful expression. She offered him the pack when he walked up beside her, lighting a match against the treebark for him to light his cigarette off of.</p><p>"Sweet as it is," she drawled after her next drag, in that low, black-coffee voice of hers, "I don't need you 'defending my honor' or whatever you were trying to do."</p><p>"He was being disrespectful," John replied, sullen.</p><p>"Well, yeah. He's an asshole," Arthur laughed, "but you get that defensive, and people are going to start thinking I'm your <em>woman</em> or something."</p><p>"Would that be so terrible?" John asked, sidling up closer—close enough to rest a hand against the small of her back, carefully.</p><p>Arthur gave him a narrow look out of the corner of her eye as she puffed on her cigarette. She didn't knock the hand away, though. "I ain't no one's woman, John."</p><p>"'Cept <em>Dutch's</em>," John immediately replied, sounding moody even to his own ears.</p><p>"Well, we're <em>all</em> Dutch's," Arthur replied to that, shrugging her shoulders, "you every bit as much as me."</p><p>"You're a <em>little</em> more his than I am," John said, still petulant, and Arthur actually rolled her eyes.</p><p>"You sound <em>just</em> like goddamn George right now—you know that, right?" She answered him, turning to face him, his hand on her back sliding around to her waist. She gripped his chin in her free hand, tilting his face side to side like she was appraising him. They were the same height, but her grip was iron and her gaze was cool. "Thought you was supposed to be a <em>man</em> now, John Marston. So why you whinin' to me like a brat?"</p><p>John swallowed, the motion of his Adam's apple obvious with his head tilted back as it was. "I just want—"</p><p>"Everyone in this camp knows what <em>you</em> want," Arthur cut him off. "Me more'n most."</p><p>Because that was thing. The whole camp <em>thought</em> they knew what John wanted, but couldn't get. Only John knew the truth of it—that Arthur <em>would</em> fuck him, <em>had</em> fucked him, if he caught her in the right mood for it.</p><p>She would fuck him, but she wouldn't belong to him.</p><p>She would fuck him, but she wouldn't <em>love</em> him. Not how he wanted.</p><p>And it wasn't as if John was jealous of Dutch, in general. Dutch was … not like a father, but like a mentor, to him. He looked up to him. He wanted to be like him, in a lot of ways. But when he saw Dutch with hand on Arthur's waist like a lover one day, and the next day saw another woman leaving Dutch's tent at first light—when he saw Arthur smoking by the fire, seemingly unbothered, while Dutch whispered sweet nothings in another woman's ear—he felt indignantly like <em>she deserved better</em>.</p><p>"Do you even love Dutch?" John asked suddenly, and Arthur gave him a disgusted look, lip curled.</p><p>"I love a lot of people, John. But what you're <em>actually</em> asking about? Is <em>none'a your god damn business</em>."</p><p>What would he have to do, John wondered, to <em>make</em> it his business?</p><p>*</p><p>The first time had been more than two years ago, right after John's seventeenth birthday. If he'd known then exactly what she was offering, and what she wasn't, he might have said no.</p><p>Then again, he might not have. John at seventeen had been even worse at resisting temptation than John at nineteen was.</p><p>John had been drinking since midday—beer until sundown, then whiskey. Arthur had been gone on a job for most of that, only returning shortly before sundown, and John was well into his cups by then. Enough so that, when Arthur appeared at the campfire, brown with trail dust and hair wind-blown and tangled, he immediately stumbled to his feet and threw his arms around her shoulders.</p><p>"Arthur! It's my birthday!"</p><p>"Yeah, Johnny, Hosea told me," she chuckled, patting him awkwardly on the back. "If I'd known before I went out, I woulda been back sooner."</p><p>"I'm seventeen," he told her, earnest in the way only a drunk can be, and she patted him on the cheek after she pulled away, patronizing. He would have slapped her hand away if he were sober, but instead he leaned into it, turning the touch into something like a caress. Arthur's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she didn't pull her hand away, not immediately.</p><p>"You're also stinkin' drunk," she replied, amused. "Guess Dutch decided you're old enough for that now?"</p><p>"I'm <em>grown</em> now," John crowed. "Dutch and Hosea said they're gonna take me robbin' next time they go out."</p><p>"That's your idea of 'grown'? Boy, you need to go find yourself a woman." George laughed.</p><p>John opened his mouth to say something like, he didn't need to find a woman, because he was looking at one, but he still had enough sense left in his head to shut his mouth after a second.</p><p>Arthur took her hand back, giving John a thoughtful, narrow-eyed look. "You know, he ain't wrong. We don't got any working girls in the camp right now, but I'm sure we could find you one in town."</p><p>"I don't wanna fuck a whore," John slurred back, sounding almost offended. "You think I can't pull a woman without payin' her?"</p><p>Arthur shrugged, crossing her arms. "'S just simpler, is all. But sure, we can let you try'n grab a <em>proper</em> lady, if that's what you're after."</p><p>"E'ryone knows what kinda woman I'm after," John replied petulantly, lifting his whiskey bottle to take another draw. Arthur took it right out of his hand and finished it off herself, instead, head tilted back, throat working. John's mouth went suddenly dry.</p><p>"John ..." she sighed, when she tossed the bottle aside, "talk to me when you're sober."</p><p>"What's that mean?" John said blankly, but Arthur just shook her head and turned away. "Hey! What does that mean?"</p><p>Arthur just waved him off over her shoulder, and disappeared into her tent.</p><p>"Man, Arthur ain't never gonna fuck you, boy," George snorted. "She fucks <em>Dutch</em>, though god knows why he'd want to. You think you gonna compete with him?"</p><p>"Shut up," John snapped, because of <em>course</em> he couldn't 'compete' with Dutch, but Dutch fucked other people—so Arthur surely could too. "Mind your fuckin' business."</p><p>*</p><p>When he stumbled to the river before dawn to dunk his head, he found Arthur sitting back against a boulder in nothing but trousers and an undershirt, her bare feet in the water, sketching in her leather journal. He froze a moment, debated turning around when he thought she hadn't noticed him, but then she looked up, cigarette dangling from her mouth, and met his eyes.</p><p>"Well? You comin' or goin', Marston?"</p><p>"Comin'," he replied hoarsely, and walked tentatively over to the shoreline. There was suddenly something oddly anticipatory about Arthur's sprawled ease, something in John's gut that made him feel like <em>prey.</em></p><p>"You know," Arthur drawled lazily, putting her journal to the side, "it occurs to me that I didn't get you anything." She cocked her head to the side, blowing out a lungful of smoke. "What would you like for your present, Johnny?"</p><p>It felt like a trap. "That's—you didn't have to get me anything."</p><p>"I don't <em>have</em> to do <em>anything,</em> John, but … hmm. Come sit with me."</p><p>John blinked. "What?"</p><p>"'S a nice morning. Come sit with me." John hesitated, and Arthur finally growled, sounding more like herself, "Sit the fuck <em>down</em>, John."</p><p>John sat. Dropped like a stone, really, thudding in the grass right where he stood, and Arthur let out a started laugh, stubbing out her cigarette against the boulder behind her. John shifted nervously, because he thought he understood how he and Arthur were—she was Dutch's woman, during the day and sometimes at night, too, while John was a snot-nosed kid whose fixation on her everyone found absolutely hilarious.</p><p>Arthur wasn't looking at him like a snot-nosed kid, right then. He wasn't sure what kinda look she <em>was</em> giving him, but there was something heavy about it, something weighing.</p><p>"Why you really been like this about me, John, all these years? Because you want what Dutch has? Because you wouldn't be the first fella to think that havin' me is somehow getting one over on Dutch."</p><p>Before he could think better of it John replied, instinctively, "Any man that thought that obviously didn't know you <em>or </em>Dutch," and Arthur let out a short, surprised bark of a laugh.</p><p>"No, they surely didn't," she agreed, slightly rueful. "But <em>you</em> do. So if it ain't about Dutch—"</p><p>"You really won't believe that I just—that I really just wanna—"</p><p>"… fuck me?" Arthur said easily.</p><p>John choked. "That's not—I wouldn't put it … that way."</p><p>"<em>I</em> would," Arthur replied in that same easy tone. "What else could you be after? You wanna hold hands and be <em>sweethearts</em>?"</p><p>The 'correct' answer to that was clearly <em>no</em>, but John couldn't make himself say it. "I don't want to treat you how Dutch does."</p><p>Arthur answered with a very narrow look. "Dutch treats me just fine. That ain't your business anyway. This is about <em>you</em> and <em>me</em>, and what the hell it is you really think you want outta me, after all these years."</p><p>John would have liked to be assertive, and confident, and bold. He would have <em>liked</em> to be, but instead he felt shy as a mouse when he leaned forward and put his mouth over Arthur's. It was nothing—a dry brush of closed lips, but it was more that he had really ever expected to get, so to him, it was kind of amazing.</p><p>Arthur grabbing a handful of his hair to tilt his head to the side, to give him a proper, open-mouthed kiss, was definitely more so.</p><p>As if the kiss was permission, John couldn't keep his hands off Arthur now, skimming up her sides over the soft, worn cotton of the undershirt she was wearing. John had only been with a few other women, but Arthur was nothing like them—under the warm, threadbare fabric her body was hard with muscle, unyielding. The hand in his hair was more a grip than a caress, forceful with intention, a leash to guide him where <em>she</em> wanted him. There was no hint of the demure yielding common among women he'd met in saloons, none of the sort of limp surrender meant to suggest they were <em>giving in</em> rather than <em>seeking out</em>.</p><p>Arthur wasn't the surrendering type.</p><p>In the end it was <em>John</em> who surrendered, finally pulling away to catch his breath, wide-eyed.</p><p>"We do this Johnny, you gotta understand one thing," Arthur said, tilting John's head to the other side with the grip still in his hair. "I realize you been panting after me so long you likely got some <em>fantasies</em> about what I might be like, but reality can be a very disappointing thing."</p><p>There was a dark, bitter undertone, but at the time, John couldn't imagine being disappointed by <em>anything</em> Arthur was willing to give him. "That's <em>fine</em>, that's—whatever you want, Arthur—"</p><p>"Hmm." Arthur grunted, and let go of John's hair. "Get undressed, then. I wanna see what I'm working with, here."</p><p>That made John's heat race a bit, but he did it, shoving his pants down his hips—no union suit, because of the heat, and no drawers, because John was an uncouth reprobate—and when he finished tugging his shirt up over his head, still buttoned, it was to find Arthur looking him like one might look at horse they were not too sure about buying. It made John self-conscious enough that he started to cover himself with his hands. Arthur immediately stopped him, grabbing both his hands at the wrist and pushing him onto his back as she forced them to his sides. Making him hold still and let her look.</p><p>John didn't look in a mirror often. They didn't keep many around the camp, and those they had were small hand mirrors, suitable for shaving and makeup, nothing you could see your whole form in. He had a vague idea of how he looked—skinny, stomach slightly hollow under his ribs, sinewy legs and arm with a sparse scattering of dark hair, his dick sitting in a thicker patch, the size something he had nothing to compare against.</p><p>He actually had no idea what women wanted to see when they looked at a man. Something like Dutch, maybe? Polished and clean, well-spoken and charming, dark and oddly mysterious. Other than being dark, John wasn't really anything like Dutch.</p><p>Then again, <em>Arthur</em> wasn't really like any of the women the other men lusted after, and that suited John just fine, so … maybe it was more complicated than that.</p><p>"I never thought you'd be <em>shy</em>, Johnny," Arthur said after a moment, letting go of his wrists. "You so bold as brass 'bout so much other stuff you ain't even good at, then you're shy 'bout," John gasped, shuddering, when she ran a finger up the thick vein along the underside of his cock, already mostly hard just from the anticipation, "something you got <em>no </em>reason to be."</p><p>John dropped his head back against the ground with a hard exhalation when her fingernail caught at his foreskin.</p><p>"You been touched before, ain't you?" She asked, almost idly, leaning to her side and resting her chin in her hand.</p><p>He had. There had been a few girls behind saloons who'd been game to tug him off for the thrill of it, and while it hadn't been the most exciting thing in the world, he'd liked that way it made the other men in the gang seem to approve of him. He'd never done it around Arthur, though.</p><p>"Had a couple," he gasped out. "Arthur, <em>please</em>."</p><p>"Please <em>what</em>?" She replied, stroking that single finger slowly back down. "You still ain't actually told me what you want outta me."</p><p>It was when she waited that John realized that she was <em>actually</em> waiting for an answer, and he gulped in a breath. "Just—your clothes?"</p><p>Arthur quirked an eyebrow at that, but she sat up and pulled her shirt up over her head, dropping it to her side.</p><p>The men talked behind Arthur's back about how she wasn't built like most women—how she was boxy and thick, with no tits to speak of. John had known that wasn't true, because he'd been one of the few that had seen her dressed up in women's frocks for some of Dutch's missions, but now he could truly appreciate <em>how</em> untrue. Once her thin undershirt was off she had a dipped-in waist underneath, simply one that wasn't corset-thin, a flat stomach dense with muscle, and—</p><p>Well, John had <em>no</em> complaints about her tits.</p><p>She lowered her hands to the placket of her trousers, unbuttoning, as John raised his hands to touch. This felt like the realization of years of fantasy, dating back to his first wet dreams, and—</p><p>And then Arthur rolled her eyes as he touched her breasts with an odd reverence and said, dryly, while she kicked her trousers down her legs, "One'd think you'd never seen a pair before," and John remembered:</p><p>This Arthur wasn't a fantasy.</p><p>"Ain't seen yours," John replied, dumbly, and Arthur laughed at that.</p><p>"Yeah, but the whole camp knows you done <em>thought</em> about 'em enough. Prob'ly jerked yourself off thinking about 'em, ain't you?" She was sliding a hand down his stomach to brush against his cock as she spoke, and he groaned low in his chest. Jesus, she'd barely touched him at all, and he felt like he was on the verge of coming. "C'mon, Johnny, <em>ain't you</em>?"</p><p>John knew that, generally, you weren't supposed to tell a woman you indulged in <em>solitary vice</em> with her on your mind, but this was a bit of a different situation. "<em>Yes</em>. All the fucking time, <em>God</em>."</p><p>Arthur hummed, and then, with very little warning and absolutely no lead up, she swung a leg across his hips and sunk down onto his painfully hard dick, so suddenly that John all but shouted, hands instinctively snapping down to grip her thighs.</p><p>When she shifted slightly side to side, almost curiously, as if trying to get a feel for him, John's eyes rolled back in his head.</p><p>"Oh, dear," Arthur cooed, smirking, "looks like I might still get back to camp while the coffee's hot."</p><p>John knew she was making fun of him, but right then he didn't much <em>care</em>, hips flexing up helplessly under her weight, trying to thrust, trying to get anything, and finally Arthur took pity and pushed herself up, muscled thighs flexing against John's sides, under his hands, to drop back down against his hips.</p><p>A slow draw off, and a hard drop down.</p><p>And again, lazily, as if she could keep the pace all day.</p><p>It was only after the third time, when John finally pushed up when she was coming down, knocking them together with breathtaking force, that Arthur finally leaned down over him, hands on either side of his shoulders, and—</p><p>Well. Arthur had asked if he wanted to fuck her. But there was no doubt in his mind that he was the one being taken. The slick wet heat of her as she rocked down against his hips made it impossible to catch his breath, his grip on her hips bruising hard.</p><p>"You close, Johnny?" She purred, when his breaths started to end in whines. "You gotta tell me, because if you shoot inside me I'm snapping your dick off—"</p><p>Something about the pure <em>Arthur</em>-ness of the statement absolutely did it for him, and she must have be able to tell, because she immediately lifted off, sitting on his thighs as he came across his own stomach, eyes squeezed shut, groaning through gritted teeth.</p><p>He thought he must have lost some time, because when he opened his eyes Arthur was already standing to pull on her trousers, a lit cigarette between her lips, and John felt a little lost, because wasn't there something he was supposed to do for <em>her</em>?</p><p>He pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Can I …"</p><p>"Nah, probably not," Arthur cut him off, pulling her shirt over her head. "Just get washed up. Oh, and John," she paused in turning and said, with an odd amount of sincerity, "Happy Birthday."</p><p>So. That had been the first time. At the time, John had counted it as the best, the most important, experience of his life. In some ways, the latter was still true, because, looking back, there was every sign about how Arthur was, how Arthur <em>would</em> be, with him, every time after.</p><p>Only four days later, he caught a glimpse of Arthur's long, pale back as she was sitting on Dutch's cot, skin visible only a moment before she pulled a shirt over her head.</p><p>It shouldn't have bothered John. He knew how Dutch and Arthur were, and he shouldn't have expected that would change just because Arthur had indulged him.</p><p>But he did.</p><p>*</p><p>He heard Susan Grimshaw teasing Arthur a few days later, something she clearly didn't intend John to hear. "You know, I think you secretly <em>like</em> having some young feller chasing after you like a lovesick pup. Lord knows <em>I</em> wouldn't mind it."</p><p>"It ain't <em>some young feller</em>, it's <em>John</em>," Arthur drawled, back, amused. "Maybe if it were just some<em> worthwhile </em>young feller, I <em>would</em> be kinda flattered."</p><p>"Oh, you love that boy, really," Susan replied, tone still teasing.</p><p>"Suppose I'm obliged to."</p><p>"Well," Susan said finally, "you oughta let him down once and for all."</p><p>Arthur hummed.</p><p>"… or," Susan continued, sounding wicked, "you could give 'im a go. He might get it out of his system."</p><p>Arthur only answered with a chuckle, but John felt a clench in his gut at how absolutely <em>wrong</em> Susan was.</p><p>It definitely wasn't out of his system</p><p>*</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. To Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I gave in. This will be a multi-chapter fic.</p><p>I'm trying to write this story as a true third person, show, don't tell story. I'm trying to stay out of the character's heads so that the reader can interpret their words and actions on their own, and to leave a lot more mystery to things as they develop.</p><p>Also, I don't know that it need to be said, but while this story involves a fair amount of sex, it is not, at this point, intended to be particularly sexy. It is not necessarily erotica, in my mind, although if you do enjoy those bits in that way you're certainly not wrong to do so.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The second time, three months later, Arthur had him in a hotel while Hosea and Dutch sat downstairs, Hosea with Bessie on his knee, and Dutch with two gorgeous working girls cuddled up on either side of him. Arthur strolled right into the room while a third working girl, hired by Dutch, tried to coax John onto the bed with batting eyes and pouted lips. Arthur guided her out with a hand on the small of her back, gave her a five dollar bill to keep her mouth shut, then stepped across the room and shoved John flat onto his back on the bed.</p><p>The third time, five months after that, Arthur had given him a long, considering look over the fire, eyes half-lidded, once the fellows had gone to bed and Dutch had retired to his tent with his latest paramour. She'd stalked off on a path that led to the other side of the lake, and when John had followed to find her washing up in the water she'd wrestled him down to the ground and had him right there, rubbing his back completely raw against the pebbled beach.</p><p>The fourth time was—</p><p>The fourth time John had sex, it wasn't with Arthur.</p><p>It was his eighteenth birthday, and after they'd cased the bank Dutch had sent them into town for, Arthur had taken him to the saloon and brought to their table, not with glasses of whiskey, but with a full bottle of the top-shelf stuff. Arthur matched him drink for drink, but with Arthur's tolerance, she was still only slightly loose when John was edging towards glassy-eyed, half of the bottle already gone. She was slouched in the chair across from him, one arm draped over the back, smirking indulgently, and all John could think about was whether this would end up in an upstairs room.</p><p>That was about when Dutch showed up.</p><p>He came into the saloon with a woman on his arm, and he pointedly sat her down next to John before taking the last chair, beside Arthur. After a moment the bartender brought over another, even more expensive bottle, and Dutch toasted John with his glass as he draped his arm over the back of Arthur's chair.</p><p>Dutch didn't do that. He slept with Arthur, but he wasn't affectionate to her—not in general, and certainly not in public, not unless she was dressed up like a proper lady. It didn't fit his <em>image</em>, to be seen with a woman who looked like Arthur.</p><p>John looked to Arthur, bafflement clear on his face, as the woman Dutch had brought curled herself around his arm. Arthur looked hesitant a moment, glancing between John and the woman.</p><p>Then she held up her own glass in a toast, leaning back into Dutch's arm, when he informed John that he had rented him a room upstairs to take his new lady friend to.</p><p>"Go have some fun, Johnny," she drawled, tilting her head back, her hair brushing against the sleeve of Dutch's jacket as she downed a shot of Dutch's whiskey.</p><p>That was— there was something like a challenge to it, to the way the corner of her mouth quirked up when her half-lidded eyes lit on the woman Dutch had brought—had <em>bought</em>.</p><p>And John, fool that he was, had never been able to back away from a challenge.</p><p>The woman was too clean and smelled sickly-sweet with perfume, and between that and his drunkenness, John couldn't even get off. He vaguely recalled rolling off of the woman and nearly falling right off the narrow bed, and hearing her huff, unimpressed, before he passed out.</p><p>The woman was gone, of course, when John awoke in the morning. John had never even gotten her name.</p><p>Arthur was already downstairs in the saloon when John drug himself there; she gestured to the bartender to bring him a plate as soon as she saw how haggard he looked.</p><p>"Have fun, did you?" She said archly, slurping her coffee obnoxiously loud.</p><p>"Did you?" John shot back, and something almost cross flashed across Arthur's face, but only for a moment, before she leaned back in her chair. "That woman was …" John muttered after Arthur didn't reply. He didn't finish, but his expression must have said it for him, because Arthur laughed.</p><p>"You got an unusual kinda taste in women, John," Arthur laughed.</p><p>"I got a taste for unusual women," John replied, pointedly, and Arthur's expression changed, going keener, shifting into the odd, considering look she sometimes gave him that John had never been able to parse.</p><p>"Wonder where you'd find one'a those," Arthur replied after a moment, leaning back to light a cigarette.</p><p>"Finding one ain't a problem," John replied. "Catching 'em is."</p><p>Arthur leaned forward, setting her elbows on the table, her eyes blazing into his. "Only a fool gets <em>caught</em>," she said slowly, deliberately. "That what you want, John—a fool?"</p><p>John scowled. "You know what I meant."</p><p>"And I meant what I said," Arthur replied, instantly. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I told you you a year ago, reality ain't always what you hope for, John. You like your <em>fantasy</em>, you're welcome to it, but don't go getting surly because <em>I</em> ain't <em>it</em>."</p><p>Dutch appeared behind her before John could reply. He didn't sit, just rested a hand on Arthur's shoulder and, smirking, asked John about how his evening had been.</p><p>"It was fine," John muttered, turning his attention immediately to the plate a waitress set in front of him.</p><p>"Just 'fine'?" Dutch replied. "I must have overpaid."</p><p>"Oh, John ain't a real big fan of whores," Arthur commented, leaning back in her seat again. "He likes <em>real </em>women."</p><p>"Well, that's the sensible way to do it, isn't it?" Dutch said, patronizingly, and since he was still to Arthur's side, he couldn't see how she rolled her eyes. "I'll tell you, there's nothing more valuable in the world than a loyal woman. Keep looking, son, you'll find one."</p><p>He patted Arthur on the shoulder, briskly, before he headed to out to, as he put it, 'chase down a few rumors'.</p><p>"You ain't never told Dutch about us," John muttered once he was gone, not a question, and Arthur snorted.</p><p>"There's no <em>us</em>, John," she said, stubbing out her cigarette against the tabletop as she stood. "Quit trying to make this into something it ain't."</p><p>"But you ain't told him," John pressed.</p><p>"No," Arthur agreed, shortly.</p><p>John mulled that over a moment, rolling his tongue over the backs of his teeth. "Why not?" He finally asked.</p><p>Arthur looked annoyed at the question, and didn't answer it. Just glared for a moment before she turned and shoved out the swinging doors into the street.</p><p>*</p><p>Three months later, Colm O'Driscoll came up to their camp, along with his brother.</p><p>Cain O'Driscoll was a good fifteen years younger than his brother, with ruddy brown hair and bright green eyes. He was bigger than his brother too, bulkier, built more like a man who used his hands rather than one who gave orders. They sauntered right up to the four of them—John, Arthur, Hosea and Dutch—with a cowboy swagger, and when Colm crossed his arms, standoffish, Cain very pointedly tipped his hat at Arthur.</p><p>Arthur snorted and, equally pointed, spat onto the ground by her feet.</p><p>So that was odd.</p><p>Dutch rose form the table, his expression cautious, but not dangerous. "Colm. To what do we owe the … <em>pleasure</em> of this visit?"</p><p>"Heard you robbed the bank in Fordyce a few months back."</p><p>"And if we did?" Hosea said carefully.</p><p>"My boys been in Dickens county for over a year." Colm took a step closer, and Arthur's hand twitched towards her gun at the same moment John's moved towards his own, and Colm immediately put his hands up, palm out. "Now, I ain't come here to start nothing. I reckon you didn't know, but that don't make it right."</p><p>"And how would we 'make it right'?" Dutch said, flatly.</p><p>"That what I came here to work out between us," Colm replied, putting on an amiable tone.</p><p>There was a standoff, for a long moment. Colm and Cain on one side, Dutch and Hosea on the other, John and Arthur off to either side like spectators.</p><p>Then Dutch took a seat.</p><p>"I'm sure we can come to an agreement," he said. "We're all reasonable men, here."</p><p>"That so?" Cain replied archly, giving Arthur a pointed glance.</p><p>Her lip curled up in a sneer.</p><p>"Have a seat, gentlemen," Dutch said, before Arthur could snarl something back. "John, why don't you fetch us a couple bottles of the good bourbon?"</p><p>When John can back with two bottles from Dutch's private stash, Arthur was no longer at the table.</p><p>Neither was Cain.</p><p>It made John's skin itch, so he dropped the bottles on the table and, on a hunch, followed the path around to the other side of the lake. He heard them before he saw them—Arthur's voice low and furious, "—like you're just <em>itchin'</em> for me to put a bullet right through your goddamn <em>teeth</em>."</p><p>"What's so wrong with trying to catch up with an <em>old friend</em>?" Cain's voice was light, almost mocking.</p><p>"You ain't no friend to me," Arthur growled, "and if your brother weren't on the other side'a this lake you would already be a dead man."</p><p>"I remember you sayin' different—"</p><p>Whatever Cain was going to say was cut out by the audible sound of a blow, and the thud of a body hitting the ground. When John burst into the small clearing, Arthur was shaking out her hand, face absolutely thunderous, and Cain was sat on the ground, cradling his jaw, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>"The hell is goin' on?" John demanded, his hand twitching towards the gun at his hip.</p><p>"<em>Leave</em>," Arthur said, her tone as dangerous as a lit fuse.</p><p>"Yeah, go on," Cain drawled, working his jaw, "you heard the <em>lady</em>."</p><p>"I mean <em>you</em>, O'Driscoll!" Arthur snarled. "You get the fuck outta my face, or I just might forget myself and do something you'll regret."</p><p>"Oh, you don't mean that, Annie," Cain cooed.</p><p>The click of the hammer on Arthur's pistol was very, very loud.</p><p>"That was never my name," Arthur said, and the sudden deadness of her tone was far more chilling than the previous rage, "and if you say it again I will cut your tongue out of your lying mouth."</p><p>Cain looked up at her from the ground, looking down the barrel of her revolver, and finally looked a bit cowed.</p><p>"I wouldn't want to overstay my welcome," He said, carefully, as he pushed to his feet and began to back away.</p><p>"You did that when you showed up," Arthur snapped back, keeping her gun on him.</p><p>John waited until Cain had disappeared down the path and Arthur had holstered her pistol, before he stepped further into the clearing. "What …" he started cautious, aware from the set of her shoulder and jaw how close to the edge she still was, "what was that about?"</p><p>Arthur met his eyes with a piercing gaze, her eyes wild.</p><p>"What do you think?" She asked, flatly.</p><p>"… sounded like the two'a you got history."</p><p>"Yeah," Arthur agreed, not elaborating.</p><p>"Do you want—"</p><p>"No," Arthur immediately cut him off, sharply.</p><p>And then she shoved John up against the tree behind him with both hands.</p><p>It was a bit like an attack. Arthur's mouth on his was more teeth than tongue, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough that he was immediately certain he would have bruises. She tangled one hand in his hair after a moment, tilting it how she wanted it so she could lick deep into the back of his mouth.</p><p>When she finally stepped back a bit, it was only so that the could grab him by the front of his shirt and tumble them both down onto the ground, John underneath her. She was yanking at the buckle of his gunbelt before he could catch his breath, dropping it to the side before tugging off her own.</p><p>John caught her hands when she reached for his suspenders, slightly alarmed. "Arthur, this is—"</p><p>"You wanna stop?" Arthur demanded, dark-eyed and breathless. She was straddled across his lap, a few layers of cotton and denim the only thing separating the heat of her from his shamefully hard prick.</p><p>Somewhere is his head, John likely knew that he should have said yes, they should stop.</p><p>Obviously, though, he didn't say that. Instead, he shrugged his suspenders off his shoulders.</p><p>"That's what I thought," Arthur said, with a hint of smirk, before she leaned over to kiss him again, pushing his head hard against he ground. She was straddled over his, grinding against him shifted to shake off her boots, and a moment later her hands were shoving between them to unbutton her flies, their fingers tangling as John went to do the same. Arthur immediately grabbed both his arms at the wrist, shoving them aside to unbutton both her herself, popping open the buttons on John's union suit next with one hard tug.</p><p>John's dick sprang out immediately, hard and red. He groaned involuntarily when he was released, quickly becoming a high pitched whine when Arthur shoved down onto him.</p><p>"<em>Jesus</em>, Arthur," John gasped out, gripping hard at her bare thighs when ground down slightly, settling into the cradle of John's skinny hips.</p><p>She rocked back and forth slightly, as she grasped his wrists again, leaning down over him to pin them on either side of his head.</p><p>"You still trying to catch me, John?" she asked, breathless.</p><p>She took her right hand off his wrist, and carefully, deliberately, circled it around his throat, right under his jaw.</p><p>She held pressed down on that hand while she fucked him, bearing down enough that John was aware of every breath he took, squeezing down his throat as she slammed her hips down against his brutally hard. Her mouth was close enough that he could have kissed it if he weren't pinned, so close that the shallow breaths he was able to take seemed as if they were coming straight from her lungs.</p><p>She wasn't holding John's wrists anymore. John still didn't move his hands.</p><p>His orgasm snuck up on him, vision pin-holed with black as he gasped for air, and he finally snapped his hands back up to grip Arthur's thighs, squeezing, right before he came.</p><p>Arthur pulled off him right before he did, sliding up to sit on his stomach, and the hand around John throat snapped down between her own legs. John couldn't see what she was touching, but she gasped sharply after a moment and shuddered, twice, with her whole body, before rolling off onto her back beside him.</p><p>*</p><p>Colm and Cain were gone when they got back to the camp.</p><p>Arthur looked perfectly put together when they returned. John, on the other hand, following shortly after her, had leaves in his hair, dirt and grass stains on the back of his shirt, and a row of fingertip-shaped bruises running down the side of his throat.</p><p>"You look like Arthur kicked the shit out of you." George said, when he saw John's neck. "She finally get sick'a your simpering?"</p><p>Arthur, over by the fire, turned a barking laugh into a cough at the last possible moment.</p><p>So anyway, that had been the forth time. Or the fifth, depending on how you look at it.</p><p>John more or less stopped counting, after that.</p><p>*</p><p>John met Annabelle Drummond the summer he turned nineteen.</p><p>He'd had a vague knowledge, before that, that Dutch had found a woman somewhere, something of a <em>patroness</em>, a wealthy woman who was smitten with Dutch's polished outlaw image—a bandit with a slickness of a politician.</p><p>When Hosea had found a woman, Bessie, he'd brought her to the camp. Made her one of them. Dutch had never done that with Annabelle, and on the ride up to her family's estate, in the finest of his shabby clothes, Arthur wearing a proper woman's dress and wide-brimmed sunhat, John asked her why.</p><p>Arthur gave him an unimpressed look. "Now, how would she funnel her grandaddy's money to Dutch if she were roughin' it will all of us?"</p><p>"There is that cynicism again, Arthur," Dutch called back to the two of them. "You know that I am a person who accepts people as they are. If my dear Annabelle wanted to join us, she would be welcome. If she does not, who am I to press her?"</p><p>"Oh, of course," Arthur replied, and Dutch didn't hear or chose to ignore the humor in her tone. "Some folk just ain't cut out for this kinda life."</p><p>Over her shoulder, though, she raised her eyebrows at John and silently mouthed the word, 'money'.</p><p>A servant in a brilliant white uniform met them at the front door, an escorted them into a bright parlor, where a young blonde woman in ringlet curls was embroidering. She all but jumped out of her seat when they servant showed them in, flinging her needlework aside, "Oh, Dutch, darling, I've been <em>waiting</em>!"</p><p>Her accent was classy, clearly east coast educated, and her clothing probably cost more than Arthur's entire gun locker. She still latched on to Dutch in his dusty travel gear, and kissed him full on the mouth.</p><p>John glanced at Arthur out of the corner of his eye, but she was lighting a cigarette, looking completely unbothered.</p><p>The embrace lasted awkwardly long, and it wasn't until she stepped back that she even noticed her other two guests.</p><p>"Oh, <em>Annie</em>!" She said, brightly. "How lovely to see you!"</p><p>*</p><p>"Annabelle called you Annie," John said, when they were riding into Billingsly, having left Ducth with his patroness to <em>catch up</em>.</p><p>"I was there," Arthur said, disinterested.</p><p>"… you don't mind?"</p><p>"I think it's clear that I don't."</p><p>"When Cain O'Driscoll called you—"</p><p>'Don't talk about him to me," Arthur immediately snapped. "You never should'a followed me that day, and anything you think you done figured out, you're probably dead wrong about."</p><p>John was silent, for nearly half a mile, before he spoke again. "Dutch told her that was your name, right? And you just went along?"</p><p>Arthur shrugged.</p><p>"And O'Driscoll, too?"</p><p>"The fuck does it matter, John?" Arthur replied, cross. "Why you always pickin' at all this shit?"</p><p>"Because I want to know!" John shot back, and there was something profound about the honest simplicity of the answer. "You never tell me anything, and <em>I want to know</em>."</p><p>"Well," Arthur replied, voice cold, "I don't want to tell you."</p><p>She spurred her horse, and rode off ahead in a cloud of dry red dust.</p>
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